1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid ejecting head that includes a piezoelectric element including a piezoelectric layer made of a piezoelectric material and electrodes and discharges liquid droplets from a nozzle orifice, and relates to a liquid ejecting apparatus and a piezoelectric element.
2. Related Art
A typical liquid ejecting head is, for example, an ink jet recording head that has a diaphragm configuring a part of a pressure-generating chamber that communicates with a nozzle for discharging ink droplets and applying a pressure to the ink in the pressure-generating chamber by being deformed by a piezoelectric element to discharge the ink as droplets from the nozzle. Some of piezoelectric elements that are mounted on ink jet recording heads have a configuration in which a piezoelectric layer having an electromechanical conversion function, e.g., a piezoelectric layer (piezoelectric film) made of a crystallized dielectric material, is disposed between two electrodes.
The piezoelectric material used for the piezoelectric layer configuring such a piezoelectric element is required to have high piezoelectric properties, and typical examples of such piezoelectric material include lead zirconate titanate (PZT) (see JP-A-2001-223404). However, from the viewpoint of environmental issues, there is a demand for a lead-free or reduced-lead piezoelectric material.
Examples of the lead-free piezoelectric material include BiFeO3-based piezoelectric materials containing Bi and Fe (for example, JP-A-2007-287745).
Unfortunately, the piezoelectric layers made of the BiFeO3-based piezoelectric materials have a problem that cracks are apt to occur during the production process and after a certain time from the production. The occurrence of cracks leads to a reduction in piezoelectric properties, such as a reduction in displacement magnitude. Such a problem occurs not only in actuator apparatuses mounted on liquid ejecting heads such as ink jet recording heads but also in actuator apparatuses mounted on other apparatuses.